Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

When Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912, she began with an image: the Open Door. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” For a century, the most important and enduring poets have walked through that door—William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens in its first years, Rae Armantrout and Kay Ryan in 2011. And at the same time, Poetry continues to discover the new voices who will be read a century from now.

Poetry’s archives are incomparable, and to celebrate the magazine’s centennial, editors Don Share and Christian Wiman combed them to create a new kind of anthology, energized by the self-imposed limitation to one hundred poems. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive or definitive—or even to offer the most familiar works—they have assembled a collection of poems that, in their juxtaposition, echo across a century of poetry. Adrienne Rich appears alongside Charles Bukowski; poems by Isaac Rosenberg and Randall Jarrell on the two world wars flank a devastating Vietnam War poem by the lesser-known George Starbuck; August Kleinzahler’s “The Hereafter” precedes “Prufrock,” casting Eliot’s masterpiece in a new light. Short extracts from Poetry’s letters and criticism punctuate the verse selections, hinting at themes and threads and serving as guides, interlocutors, or dissenting voices.

The resulting volume is an anthology like no other, a celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention, a vital monument to an institution that refuses to be static, and, most of all, a book that lovers of poetry will devour, debate, and keep close at hand.

Review:

"Founded in the flower of modernism, important (and importantly unpartisan) during the clash of styles and schools in the 1960s, and resurgent (as well as well-funded) today, the magazine out of Chicago has long had a place at the center of U.S. verse. Share and Wiman — who now hold the titles of editor and senior editor — select a delightful and powerful set of poems from the magazine's history. Though the arrangement avoids chronological order, the earliest and the most recent years stand out, from T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Isaac Rosenberg's WWI poetry to 21st-century work by Ange Mlinko and Laura Kasischke. In between come Marianne Moore, W.H. Auden, Lucille Clifton, and more leading lights, though the real distinction — emphasized by the order — lies in the poems from five or 50 years ago whose authors never became world-famous, such as the bittersweet rhymed quatrains in 'On Leaving the Bachelorette Brunch,' by the late Rachel Wetzsteon. Tantalizing bits of prose from the magazine appear, almost like bookmarks, interspersed among poems: the philosopher Richard Rorty, for example, confesses, 'I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse.' With its friendly layout and its relative brevity, the volume feels like an extended issue of the magazine; it may find one life as a gift book, but it should find another as pleasure reading, especially for those who have not already discovered many of the poets here." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Don Share, senior editor of Poetry¸ is a poet and the author, editor, or translator of numerous books. Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry from 2003 to 2013, is the author of three books of poetry, a volume of essays, and a memoir.

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Founded in the flower of modernism, important (and importantly unpartisan) during the clash of styles and schools in the 1960s, and resurgent (as well as well-funded) today, the magazine out of Chicago has long had a place at the center of U.S. verse. Share and Wiman — who now hold the titles of editor and senior editor — select a delightful and powerful set of poems from the magazine's history. Though the arrangement avoids chronological order, the earliest and the most recent years stand out, from T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and Isaac Rosenberg's WWI poetry to 21st-century work by Ange Mlinko and Laura Kasischke. In between come Marianne Moore, W.H. Auden, Lucille Clifton, and more leading lights, though the real distinction — emphasized by the order — lies in the poems from five or 50 years ago whose authors never became world-famous, such as the bittersweet rhymed quatrains in 'On Leaving the Bachelorette Brunch,' by the late Rachel Wetzsteon. Tantalizing bits of prose from the magazine appear, almost like bookmarks, interspersed among poems: the philosopher Richard Rorty, for example, confesses, 'I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse.' With its friendly layout and its relative brevity, the volume feels like an extended issue of the magazine; it may find one life as a gift book, but it should find another as pleasure reading, especially for those who have not already discovered many of the poets here." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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